Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against SAC Capital Advisors, accusing the giant hedge fund firm of a decade-long "scheme" to take inside information for public companies and turn it into hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.

The charges, disclosed Thursday by the US attorney's office in Manhattan, cap a multi-year probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in a separate civil action is seeking to ban SAC founder Steven Cohen from managing client money for the rest of his life.